


Leaving Just a Memory (Snapshot in the Family Album)

by sariagray



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:02:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever John walks to and from work, he passes by a wall covered in "Believe in Sherlock" graffiti.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving Just a Memory (Snapshot in the Family Album)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Make Me A Monday by g3rm_tr3m0r over on the LJ community, sherlockbbc. Title and lyrics are from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" trilogy. Beta'd by analineblue.

_I don't need no arms around me  
And I don’t need no drugs to calm me.  
I have seen the writing on the wall.  
Don't think I need anything at all._

 

John Watson doesn’t pay attention anymore. 

He’d stopped noticing the whispers a week ago, has just gotten over the varying degrees of staring and the people stopping in the middle of the street, and has been completely oblivious to the sympathetically downturned mouths and the hands that press against his shoulder since the beginning.

“We miss him, too” and “Did he really?” are just white noise. Figures blend seamlessly into the grey backdrop. John Watson walks.

The path to and from Tesco’s, the path to and from work, the path to and from Harry’s – they’re all wet with rain and dingy. The clutter of wrappers and packets and bottles that washes up along the sidewalk go unnoticed except when they need to be circumnavigated. Step left, step forward, step right, step forward, continue.

He’s on his way to work now – work which he completes with the same efficiency as always, but the compassion is gone. It isn’t replaced with something sharper or more acidic, it just _lacks_. There is a gaping hole where it used to be, and if someone’s made a comment, he hasn’t noted it.

The walk to work is his favorite, and also his most hated, path, for the reminder that it brings: On the way, there is a wall. On that wall, in different styles and colors, “Believe in Sherlock.” This, John notices and has noticed every single day. 

It had started small; a relatively tiny, hesitant scrawl in the corner. The next day, there were three more. Red and yellow, purple, blue and green like a bright, cheery bruise on the brick. The words continue to multiply until the voices of a hundred vandals echo “Believe in Sherlock” through winter-dark, empty streets. 

And then the flowers came. Just one bunch of orchids, fallen on its side like it had been dropped by some poor, careless person in a bit of a hurry. Then others appeared, and candles, and once, a pack of cigarettes that were gone by the following morning. They weren’t much, the flowers and candles and mementos, just a smattering of mourning in the shadow of the wall, but that they were there at all was reassuring.

John turns the corner and bumps into a short, plump man, bundled in hat and scarf and coat to keep out the bitter morning chill.

“Sorry,” John mutters, and the man nods, then squints his eyes as though trying to place him. 

John keeps his head down and carries on walking. He refuses to hear the man call after him, shouting something about “the doctor.”

Sometimes, there are no flowers or candles. John suspects they are cleared up in the night by the homeless, though he isn’t entirely sure what purpose stumps of wax and wilted petals might serve them. As he rounds the last block, he checks the seam of wall and sidewalk. Two bouquets, one candle, and an upended polystyrene cup, which may or may not have been left intentionally. Very well, then.

If his steps quicken as he gets closer, he doesn’t realize. If it begins to feel like running, he doesn’t realize. It is the way he has always walked this route, slow and trudging until his gait becomes something approaching normal speed.

The wall, a span of about ten meters, is filled from the bottom to about three meters up. There are a few new additions since his last passing three days ago, most noticeably a bit that looks like calligraphy done in blue and a purple explosion that he wouldn’t be able to read if he didn’t already know what it said. It’s all become a bit of an artists’ challenge, really – a show of craftsmanship and ability amongst this particular populous. He wonders, sometimes, who these people might be when they’re not writing bits of propaganda on walls.

John steps back to the edge of the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, to get a better look at the whole thing. His eyes track up, up, and there. There, impossibly high and in large, bold, blood-red print, “PROTECT THE DOCTOR.”

It is not artfully done in the way recent additions have been, and therefore does not enter the unspoken competition. It is too loud, powerful, and almost condescending in the effortlessly straight, thick lines; the word of God, taller than any other tag and taking up almost the whole length of the wall. 

John shuffles back further, until he is practically standing in the street. He hunches his shoulders, tucks his chin down. It’s daunting, so thunderous that it reverberates in his head and rattles his brain. The lettering roars at him, roars at the people walking below, at the mourners with their flowers, the artists with their cans of paint, the families in the flats above the shops on the other side of the street. It instructs, admonishes, rolls its eyes in frustration at the absurdity of humanity.

He laughs, then. It’s a high, nervous sound, deprecating – he can’t really be personifying a bit of text on a wall, can he? It’s just some poor soul who wants to be different, who wants attention drawn. Hell, it might even be a threat – Lord knows he’s received his fair share of bizarre warnings from megalomaniacal criminals in the past.

Still, in his head he hears “Protect the doctor” in a low, disdainful tone. A tone which says, quite clearly, that it can’t be bothered with people if they’re going to continue to be idiotic. It makes John feel the warm fire of fond affection and the cold hand of loss all at once. He’s sorely tempted to turn around and flee back to the flat, to the cocoon of blankets and memories he’s constructed ( _Sherlock’s dressing gown flung over the back of the sofa, his violin still leaning precariously against the leg of the table, the tea cup with solidified dregs still clinging to the bottom_ ), but he won’t.

He’ll be late for standing there, on the street in the cold, but he’ll continue on his way. Just a few more minutes, just a few more memories, and then he’ll go to work. He will. He will.

* * *

Molly Hooper sits in a café, a cup of coffee at her elbow. She has on an extra jumper for warmth, because it’s been so blisteringly cold out these past few days, and the wool scratches uncomfortably at the skin around her neck and shoulders. 

The coffee (her third) is cooling, has been for the past hour. The barista on duty has been eyeing her suspiciously for some time now (or maybe it’s sympathetic – she must paint quite the forlorn picture, sitting here alone and gazing out the frosted window). She takes a sip of it for show and then rubs at the back of her neck.

Finally, her mobile beeps. She fumbles, almost dropping it on the tiled floor, and only just manages to get it open without further mishap. 

The message is a simple question mark, a small curve like a backwards “c” with a dot beneath it, but she can feel the weight behind it. The waiting, the worry, the weariness, it practically leaps off of the small screen to hit her between the eyes. Then again, maybe she’s just projecting (he’d accused her of that before, not too long ago, but she saw in his eyes that she’d hit her mark. She saw her successful deduction in the way he leaned over John’s shoulder, too, though it didn’t make her happy or proud – just immeasurably sad for them both). 

She stares at the small black symbol, at the unknown number, at the bluish tint of the mobile’s backlight for a moment, and then types out her response.

_Done._

She sends it, quickly, and then clenches the mobile in her hand. She feels the cool plastic warm and clutches tighter. 

From the window, she can see John still staring up at the wall – he’s been there for almost ten minutes now, and he’ll be late for work, she’s certain. She entertains the thought of calling John’s supervisor to tell them he’ll be out today, and then perhaps whisking him somewhere safe and warm, plying him with tea and biscuits, but he’s got a much better woman to do all that for him. Molly doesn’t know Mrs. Hudson all that well, but she has been assured that her particular brand of care is worthwhile and that John will be well looked after there.

Her eyes scan the red text on the wall for the hundredth time. The work had been done efficiently and with speed, the final payment rendered to a chavvy bloke early this morning in this very café. She’s still not entirely sure how he got himself up there or what they’re all supposed to protect the doctor _from_ , exactly. Murder? Loneliness? Himself?

She frowns, then bites her lip. She opens up her mobile, flicks through its functions until she finds the camera. A quick snap through the window, not as stealthy as she would have liked, and the image she gets is a bit of a blur through a distance, but the subject is clear enough. She sends that, too, and adds her own subscript. 

_You’re the biggest idiot of them all sometimes._

The mobile beeps a few seconds later. 

_Thank you._

Molly feels the weight of that, too, only this time it settles somewhere in her stomach like she’s trying to digest a brick. She swallows and puts the mobile down on the tabletop. She nudges it as far away from herself as she can without letting it drop from the edge.

And then she sips at her coffee, silent and heavy with thought, and watches over John until he finally pulls himself away from the wall.


End file.
